Monica Mendoza
Their hands shook, and some stumbled to find the right words. But the parents,
teachers and children who spoke to the Glendale Elementary School District
governing board Tuesday night described Isaac E. Imes Elementary School, their
school, as their community.

Theirs is a school that has gone
from underperforming status to performing in the past two years. Theirs is a
school where teachers stay late to work with children and where Spanish-speaking
parents feel welcome. They don't want anything to change.

"Imes is our neighborhood, we are proud of Imes," said Esther Anaya-Garcia,
parent and former Imes student. "Imes fits our demographics and our
Spanish-speaking community."

In a standing-room-only board room, parents listened to a proposal that would
turn Imes into a traditional school, one that follows a back-to-basics
philosophy, where children wear uniforms and parent participation is mandatory.

The proposal is part of a districtwide plan that calls for changing school
boundaries, adding full-day kindergarten at every campus, decreasing busing
services and maximizing school buildings. Parents held signs and presented a
petition of signatures against the proposed changes at Imes. More than 100
parents, teachers and children were there.

All the proposed changes were unveiled this week during a School Board study
session, where the board did not make any decisions and called for more study
sessions to explore all of the options.

"I am aware of the symbol this school holds," board member Barbara English said.
"I view this school as the historic part of town."

A new K-8 school, scheduled to open in August at Orangewood and 79th avenues,
triggered the proposed changes. New attendance areas must be set for the new
school. Glendale schools are also making room for full-day kindergarten classes
at every school. Glendale voters recently approved a budget override to pay for
that program.

But while one area of the district is growing with new homes, other parts of the
district are not. Enrollment, which was on a steady incline for years, is now
stagnant at 13,672 students this school year. And that has created a hardship on
the budget, Superintendent Perry Hill said. This year the School Board is
expected to make $900,000 in cuts to the 2005-06 budget to cover the employee
raises.

Hill said the district must make
program changes to attract parents to Glendale schools. A demographic study
shows that as many as 2,700 children who live within Glendale's boundaries
attend school elsewhere, and that means Glendale is losing about $8 million a
year.

"I'm facing two choices: get growth up, get kids to come back, or next year,
there will be no salary increase," Hill said.

Imes is being considered for the traditional program because it has the lowest
enrollment. Already about half the 536 children are bused to the central
Glendale campus, 6625 N. 56th Ave. Hill said a traditional school could attract
new parents to the district.

"Traditional schools have a draw that is outside of the district," Hill said.
"And, they are extremely successful in academics."

If Imes was converted to a traditional school, teachers would need to reapply
for positions, there would be no busing and there is no guarantee that the dual
language program, one of two in the district, would stay intact.

In recent years, board members have expressed interest in adding a traditional
school to the district's mix. Traditional schools around the Valley, including
those in Alhambra and Washington school districts, are popular among parents and
students there earn top test scores. Alhambra Traditional School
seventh-graders, for example, scored in the 91st percentile in Stanford 9
Achievement tests last year, and some students travel from Dysart and Gilbert
districts to attend, Glendale school officials said.

Traditional schools follow a back-to-basics philosophy with an emphasis on
reading, writing, math, discipline and homework. Teachers follow a lecture-style
approach and there is less cooperative learning and hands-on activities. In a
survey of traditional schools around the Valley, Glendale officials found they
use the phonics-based Spalding Method for reading and spelling.

"The No. 1 thing is that parents are in on the planning and decision-making
process for a traditional school," said Debbie Bailey, Glendale's director of
academic programs.

But Imes parents said the proposal, based on numbers and budgets, fails to see
the traditions already in place at the second-oldest school in the district.

At Imes, children learn in a dual language program, where they receive 50
percent of their instruction in English and 50 percent in Spanish. Former Imes
student Yadira Siordia, 16, an honor roll student at Apollo High School, said
she is fluent in both English and Spanish and is now studying French.

One parent said her son, identified as gifted, would not do well in a
traditional, lecture-style classroom. And others worried about how children in
special education classes would deal with a move to a new school.

Under the proposal, next year's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders scheduled
for Imes would go to Landmark Middle School, which worries parent Christee
Amarillas. The bilingual mother prefers her children stay at a K-8 school, and
learning in both English and Spanish.

"I do not want a traditional school," Amarillas said. "We are a big family at
Imes."

To the Imes parents, the proposal feels like a blow to the community. They have
history together, they said. Many teachers were once Imes students. And
generations of families have attended the school. They feel they are being
pushed aside to bring in new parents.

"This is breaking up the community," parent Rebecca Ontiveros said. "To do that
would bring chaos."